[…] Not only did Iowa deliver a blow to the presumptive leaders in each party, it also roughed up a few bits of conventional wisdom. Among the marketing and political clichés that took a beating: Today’s youth are tough to reach, disengaged and won’t vote; women respond best to women; and negative advertising usually works. Oh, yeah, and the guy with the biggest spend wins […]

[…] John Zogby, president-CEO of polling firm Zogby International, said the results signal that it’s not only the amount of advertising that determines victory but also the message. He suggested that Mr. Huckabee emerged as a likable Ronald Reagan type and that his quick rise left little time for opponents to point out any questions about his record.

“Some people caught the mood of the nation. Some people didn’t,” said Fred N. Davis III, a GOP consultant and head of Strategic Perception, Los Angeles.

Or as Mr. Huckabee put it to Jay Leno the night before the caucuses: “People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off.” (Mr. Huckabee also noted in interviews that his was a victory for “message over money.”)

But that’s not to say “the message” should be confused with policy positions. In essence, Mr. Huckabee was running against the establishment. Mr. Davis argues that it wasn’t so much Mr. Huckabee’s stances voters liked; it was that they disliked Mr. Romney presenting himself as an establishment candidate. Mr. Huckabee’s successful use of videos featuring Chuck Norris also helped in that regard […]

[…] Roy Sekoff, founding editor of the Huffington Post, said in the short term, Iowa also generated a strong evangelical turnout for Mr. Huckabee, but Mr. Romney’s advertising had problems. “It seemed as though, given the extensive amount of advertising, the more they saw, the less they liked,” he said.

And Mr. Zogby pointed out that Iowan Republicans may have long ago grown tired of Mr. Romney’s ubiquitous presence. “You can advertise too much,” he said. “People get tired of seeing the same old face, and he went negative. Iowans didn’t like it.”

While Mr. Huckabee pulled his own fair share of jabs and sucker punches, many of them were thrown off the air or quickly forgotten by the media, whereas Mr. Romney’s ads were in heavy rotation.

Again, that’s not to say that advertising doesn’t work. Good advertising — or at least inoffensive advertising — should help. Mr. Obama’s $10 million broadcast buy obviously contributed to his victory. But again, it was the anti-establishment message — one similar to Mr. Huckabee’s — that Mr. Obama provided that seems to have resonated […]

Yes. Thank you. These are strings on which we have harped for months.

In sum, you must have a message. You must have a message that connects with people. How do you know if your message is successful? ROI, children. ROI. Can your message pay for itself? Or does it require huge subsidies to—or, in Romney’s case, complete saturation—to deliver. This was our constant fixed point in our discussion of Romney: ROI.

Also remember, children, a message is subject to the laws of diminishing marginal returns JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS WORLD.

Too little stimulus and no one notices or remembers. But too much and people stop listening. What you want is the mean, the golden mean, and this is Romney’s fatal flaw: the man has no subtlety, no sense of proportion.

The most successful messages will not persist in their effectiveness, but must be continually, continuously renewed, just like everything else in nature.

About going negative: it can be effective to go negative provided that your negatives are not higher than your opponent’s, and no one’s negatives are higher than Romney’s. If they are, you lose. Here is where we explain why:

In the midst of criticizing Obama and other Democrats on foreign and economic policy Tuesday, the GOP presidential hopeful said:

“Actually, just look at what Osam — Barack Obama — said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. … It’s almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded.”

Romney apparently was referring to an audiotape aired Monday in which a speaker believed to be terrorist Osama bin Laden called for insurgents in Iraq to unite and avoid divisions. The authenticity of the tape aired on Al-Jazeera television could not be immediately confirmed … etc., etc.

There is never a dull moment when you ‘blog for Team Romney. Everyone should try it!—it’s fun, safe, healthy, and provides hours and hours of quality entertainment. And, in some small way, you just might help save this troubled republic of ours from the Romneys.

Does anyone still remember Bill Palmer, the self-styled “flame giant” of USENET? To brief yourself on this uniquely abusive USENET entity, or to refresh your memory, you can refer to this FAQ, follow the links etc. In sum, Palmer, shielded by the anonymity of the medium, would provoke other newsgroup users into flame duels by nit-picking, cheap shot taking, taking claims out of context, and relentless bombast. If called on his behavior he would claim injury even as he would lie, distort, and relentlessly attack his opponent, behaviors summarized here.